US to Use Warrantless Surveillance Evidence in Court Case

Amid the NSA scandal, they want to use evidence obtained through warrantless surveillance

The entire issue with the NSA spying is that it is done without a warrant, with very little oversight from a court that rarely ever says “no” to the agency and that doesn’t really sanction it when it goes overboard.

With that in mind, there has now been an unprecedented move in the US legal system – evidence obtained through warrantless surveillance is going to be used in the case where the accused is suspected of terrorism, The Guardian reports.

The US Justice Department informed the legal team of Jamshid Muhtorov, suspected of terrorism, that it plans to use communications obtained without a warrant as evidence against him.

This is not something that is normally permitted by law and usually all evidence found in such a way is deemed unusable in court.

According to the filing, the government wants to use “information obtained or derived from acquisition of foreign intelligence information conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.”

Such practice, in the midst of the NSA spying scandal doesn’t bode well.